"Are You Antisemetic or Just Stupid?"

WTF? Did you really schedule your School Board debate for the first night of Rosh Hashana? Yup, you did. You must figure that Jews don't care about education. OK, you can go back to sleep now. Actually, I am hurt and disappointed. Every freaking calander [sic] has the Jewish High Holidays on it. And you guys claim to be hip, multicultural and "aware?" Ha.

Michael Blum

Dear Michael,

To answer your question: both. As a descendant from a huge Jewish family killed in the Holocaust—save for my grandmother and her sister, who was rescued from a concentration camp—and a Catholic mother, I exist in a synergy of guilt. Sin, sanctimony, circumstance, and virtually any suggestion of shortcoming only serves to resonate with my hereditary sense of inadequacy. This manifests in moments of grand stupidity and self-loathing, which, per my genes, must be a form of antisemitism. It's a closed circuit of self-loathing!

In response to your astute observation—"You must figure that Jews don't care about education"—when scheduling the event at Town Hall, we did know it was the first day of Rosh Hashana. Conspiring with colleagues Elijah Sanders and David Goldstein, we saw this as an inroad for our imminent War on Hanukkah, and we were redoubled in our chutzpah by the fact that September 28 was the best day for our newspaper's schedule and for the venue.